Is There A Tropical Storm?

Jet lag always seems to want to affect me when I travel West. I went to bed about 9:30 Hawaii time which would be about 2:30a.m. back at home. It had been a long travel day and I was more than ready for my head to hit the pillow. I fell asleep right away and felt like it was going to be a good nights sleep. I was surprised when I woke up and looked at the clock to see it was only a little after 4:00 in the morning. Not cool jet lag, not cool. I tried to fall back asleep and I think I did for a little bit, but I was up again for good at 6:00.

I had a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast and surfed the net looking for a snorkeling tour to book for later in the week. I found one through Viator that I booked for Tuesday. Currently Tropical Storm Hone is making it’s way towards the Southern side of the Big Island and I’m hoping by Tuesday that it will have passed and be ok for snorkeling. So far today, the storm has not really impacted us. It rained here and there as we were travelling and there were some stronger winds, but nothing that I felt was anything more out of the ordinary than I have experienced before.

A little before 10:00 we set out to go to Waimea to a farmer’s market. Although it was sunny blue skies when we left, as we gained elevation towards Waimea it began to rain pretty steadily. We made a quick stop at a drug store and headed to the market. Although it was raining we sill got out and made a very quick loop and didn’t buy anything. We took a different route back and was able to stop for a couple of geocaches that were just off the road. Both were quick and easy finds.

When we got back it had clouded up, so although my first inclination was to relax by the pool, I opted to go for a walk instead. On the way back to the condo from Waimea we had passed an interesting trail head that was just a short walk from the main entrance of the condo neighborhood. I told Uncle Andy I would be back in an hour and headed out. The trail is made up of small lava rocks and although I was wearing my Sketcher Air Walk tennis shoes, I was soon wishing I had brought my more solid Saucony trail running shoes or hiking shoes. Of course my shoes didn’t stop me from walking the trail. I checked my geocaching app and found there was one quite a ways down the trail. At about the point I should have been turning around to head back to meet my goal time of being gone for an hour, I still had a half mile to go to the cache. Since I had already had gone as far as I had, I figured I should just keep going and go for it. I’m glad I did and was able to make the find. On the walk back I texted Uncle Andy to let him know it would be an additional 40 minutes before I got back. All-in-all it was a good hike and I look forward to doing more this week.

I had definitely worked up an appetite on the walk and Uncle Andy was ready to venture out for a meal as well. We spent some time scouring the internet and the guest book in the condo for places to eat. We had found a couple but decided to go to Kona Brewing Company . . . well at least that’s where we thought we were going when we walked to the car. On the drive to Kona Uncle Andy mentioned Ola Brewing Company and I asked if they had food there. He wasn’t sure so I looked it up on my phone and discovered they did in fact have food. We decided to go to Ola Brewing Company instead. We sat at the bar and each had a flight of beer and ordered a smash burger. As we waited for our food we noticed it had started to rain. Sitting in the bar was the perfect choice for an afternoon activity on a rainy/tropical storm kind of day. The burger was one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. It was sooo good. When I finished my flight I tried an alcoholic Dragonfruit Lemonade drink that was pretty good as well.

Having our fill we noticed the rain had now turned to a mist so we headed out and Uncle Andy gave me a mini driving tour of Kona. We went over to the Old Kona Airport Beach Park. I attempted a geocache but didn’t find it. I also took a quick walk along the beach and found a couple of pieces of beach glass. On the way back out of town I saw a geocache in a parking lot of a shopping area. As I read the cache description I found out that it was placed by Lance Armstrong. That was enough for me to take a look for it. Ground zero took me to a bicycle shaped bike rack. I have a feeling I know where the cache was meant to be, but the last few cachers didn’t find it and several others said it had been shoved in too far to retrieve. Another DNF, but I didn’t feel frustrated by it. I thought it was funny that I noticed Team Janine and John (a geocaching couple we know from Wisconsin) and found it when they stopped here on a cruise a couple of years ago.

Back at the condo Uncle Andy and I played three games of cribbage. I won the first game by 2 pegs! It was a close and exciting game. The next two games he crushed me! He had gotten a couple of big hands in a row that I just couldn’t recover from. The last game I avoided getting skunked by only 3 pegs. He is my Dad’s brother so I fully expected him to have that cribbage advantage.

We don’t have any plans for tomorrow so we’ll just see where the day takes us!

Stats of the Day

Steps: 12,724
Geocaches: 3 of 5 attempted
Number of Rainbows Sighted: 1 Double Rainbow
Pieces of Sea Glass Collected: 7